Hi all. I'm in the middle of trying to get my lightwave objects over to a web company that only uses Maya. Exporting as Collada seems to be playing well geometry wise. But the UV maps and textures aren't showing up on their end. I've watched this http://vimeo.com/5234712 but my object has 7 different UV's applied, not sure if that is complicating things. Any help would be much appreciated. Unfortunately I'm under a tight deadlight.

Screenshots attached of lightwave and maya.

MicroMouse

07-22-2009, 02:59 PM

If you are using Windows, try AccuTrans 3D at http://www.micromouse.ca/ and export as Maya MA files.

Wayne

jmart1079

07-22-2009, 03:29 PM

On a mac... I'm trying to find another solution with the web developer right now. It doesnt seem like theres a way for Maya to read all the data.

Phil

07-22-2009, 03:53 PM

The FBX and DAE exports are problematic in the current version of LW - you'll generally get mangled UVs no matter what you do. NewTek are aware of it, but despite much prodding they seem to have no timeline for a fix.

My workaround to date has been to find someone with Modo and get them to convert the models to FBX. Maya 2009 with the FBX 2010.2 importer works just fine with the exported data. No mangled UVs, and you get any morph data included without problems (Modo 302 excepted - morph data is mangled by that version of Modo).

I wish I could find a nicer way to say this, but LW's touted interoperability is a joke in 9.6 and NT's footdragging to address it is enormously frustrating.

If you're in a pinch, you could try the Accutrans program under CrossOver Office (http://www.codeweavers.com), assuming you are on an Intel Mac. You won't need a Windows license, but there is no guarantee that the program will work. They have a trial version for download

jaxtone

07-22-2009, 05:22 PM

Phil! What can I say? Brothers in arms? Well NT has a lot to prove, thats for sure because until now it seems like an empty bag of promises!

Tiresome? Yes!

The FBX and DAE exports are problematic in the current version of LW - you'll generally get mangled UVs no matter what you do. NewTek are aware of it, but despite much prodding they seem to have no timeline for a fix.

My workaround to date has been to find someone with Modo and get them to convert the models to FBX. Maya 2009 with the FBX 2010.2 importer works just fine with the exported data. No mangled UVs, and you get any morph data included without problems (Modo 302 excepted - morph data is mangled by that version of Modo).

I wish I could find a nicer way to say this, but LW's touted interoperability is a joke in 9.6 and NT's footdragging to address it is enormously frustrating.

If you're in a pinch, you could try the Accutrans program under CrossOver Office (http://www.codeweavers.com), assuming you are on an Intel Mac. You won't need a Windows license, but there is no guarantee that the program will work. They have a trial version for download

Cageman

07-22-2009, 05:27 PM

Well...

The HUGE difference between the two apps (just to start somewhere), makes these kinds of things pretty hard to achive. The fact that Maya has really poor support for multiple UV-sets, makes transfers from LW much harder when a single object has many UV-sets.

There are also limitations within Maya that makes things even worse (I really don't want to go there), so blaming everything on NT isn't really fair to be honest.

I have experienced plenty of situations where things between LW and Motionbuilder works perfectly well, while between LW/Maya, the same exact fbx ends up in a mess.

The ONLY explanation I can figure out is the fact that MotionBuilder started off as an external app (developed by Kayadra) that could interpret different applications. This functionality is still there, but for some strange reason, AD hasn't implemented this functionality in their own apps.

So... this makes me conclude that both AD and NT are equaly bad at these things, and Kayadra (back in the days) really did make wonders with Motionbuilder to support so many different applications and how their data is transfered into the program.

Phil

07-22-2009, 11:32 PM

Errr. This one case *is* NewTek's fault. They have acknowledged that the UV export is completely busted in FBX and DAE, and that morph support is totally absent (by design choice). On reading the last point, I threw my hands up in frustration. The UV corruption should have been grounds for a very fast hotfix release to at least make it work as expected.

PointOven would perhaps be a solution except that, for Maya, there is also no morph/blendshape support, which is irritating (and makes it useless for me quite a lot of the time).

Red_Oddity

07-23-2009, 03:19 AM

Just export an obj of your object from LW with just a single texture as surface but each time with another UV assigned, then in Maya use the Transfer Attributes tool found under the Mesh tab of the Polygon mode to transfer the UVs from all objects to your original imported Collada file (as this one has the shading somewhat correct.)
When that is done, use the UV Linker to link the correct UV set to the correct texture's Placement Node.